Saturday, July 30, 2016

No, ladies and gentlemen, I have not made these up. I'm guilty of committing these silly deeds with my contacts, unfortunately. So, proceed at your own risk.

Dropped them - I guess this is common for those who are just starting out. I dropped them on the floor on a couple of occasions. At first I thought of throwing them away, being anxious and all about getting them contaminated, but thought cleaning them thoroughly with multipurpose solutions was enough - I found out later that you still have to go through the disinfecting process, which is storing/soaking them overnight or at least six hours after cleansing. By the way, remember to never use tap water to clean your contacts.

Overused - Not for over a month in one go or anything like that; but I had an errand to attend to and had worn the contacts for over 12 hours; and then stored them for just four hours, before using them again [just for reference, as mentioned above, you’re supposed to store them overnight or at least six hours]. I was already using Biofinity, which is an extended-wear contacts, and they were almost at the end of the one-month mark. As I put one on, the contact simply slid down my eye. I had to use fresher ones for that day.

Surprised by cold finger - I guess it was cold. I mean it was cold and everything was cold and I should have expected this right? Yes, but I was still surprised by the coldness of my finger [while trying to apply my contacts] and poked my eye in the process.

Put on the ‘right’ contact in my left eye - I have different prescriptions for each eye; so the 'right' contact should always go to the right eye and the left to the left. Once, I was in such a hurry that I put the contact for my right eye into my left eye, all the while thinking I should get ready in no time, only to discover that both eyes were blurry…

Got a red eye - This was when I was still new and everything was anxiety-inducing. After washing my face, I checked to see if my eyes were OK [I was not wearing contacts at the time] and to my surprise I saw that my right eye was red; lots of blood vessels all over. I was quite shocked. Of course I thought it had to do with the contacts. A lot of things went through my mind, including if I was having an infection or one of those ulcers; and thought, "This is how I’m going to go blind". Yes, funny now; but it just went through my mind for a split second… OK a few. After a few minutes of thinking, walking up and down as I usually do when facing with an anxiety-inducing situation, I remembered that as I was washing my face a few minutes before, I felt an itch and rubbed my eye - the right one, I mean the one on the right - and that must be how I got the red eye. Sure enough, a few hours later the redness subsided.

Got one halfway 'lost' into my eye - I don’t remember what I was laughing about but I was laughing so hard that I teared up, and, trying to just push the tear off with the back of my hand, I accidentally pushed the lens up and out of its place halfway inside the upper eyelid; and had trouble trying to get the lens centred and laughing at the same time. By the way, I got it back to its place by closing my eye and rubbing it gently and pushing the lens back to the centre.

Trying to ‘remove’ my contact - This is why I can’t have my mind wandering off when I’m doing something. I use the ‘slide down’ method to remove my contacts and I use my index finger to do so. One day, as I placed my index finger at the centre of my eye to slide the contact down, I felt uncomfortable; to be precise my eye felt uncomfortable. I was taken by surprise that I blinked immediately, and wondered why my eye was this sensitive. I tried again still wondering, only to realise that I was supposed to put on my contacts instead of removing them. It’s times like these that I seriously question my intelligence.

Friday, July 1, 2016

One day, I was having a conversation with my mom and we had a disagreement on something, and I kept insisting on being right until it was proven that I was right. And then she said, "OK, OK, you win", or something to that effect. That was not the first time that it struck me that, everyone thought whenever we had a disagreement, it was about me winning; even when I tried to be reasonable, even [especially] when I tried to look at it from many different angles; and when I do this, I'm often labeled as argumentative. I have never thought of simply to win instead of finding the truth. OK, roll your eyes, but it's true. If I'm wrong, prove that to me. I will gladly accept it if it seems logical - with all my own bias and prejudice tendencies.

The Truth and The Chicken

I've always been a proponent of the truth [with the exception of which you'll later find out]. Once, when I was nearing the end of high school, just right before the big exam, at a motivation outing, the facilitator asked us: if you believe in something and new evidence surfaces, do you still hold on to your belief or do you change your mind? I said that of course I would change my mind, and then chickened out and said that of course you’d have to stand firm with what you believe in; which was [I perceived] the 'correct' answer at the time, which I did not and do not believe in.

For wanting to find the truth, I don't understand why it's shameful to be wrong. New evidence come up all the time. I'm wrong all the time; which is sometimes a different matter altogether.

How many times have we told a story and then proven to be flawed; and to save ourselves from embarrassment we add a little here and there, or exaggerate for credibility? I've even done it myself.

I’ve always been a person who doesn't simply believe what things or how things appear to be. Sometimes an interpretation of a series of events is far from the truth.

Can’t Talk About Truth Without Talking About Lies

I can tell a lie but I hate it. I find that one lie often leads to another for cover. I have a story that happened when I was about ten or nine. I don’t know if this is why I hate lying, but it made a mark in me. There was this one time when my relatives came over for a visit and along with them were my cousins. It was, now proven, a once in a lifetime occurrence to have so many of them all at once. And I had to go to school the next day. It was the end of the school term and we wouldn’t have any lessons anymore anyway. So, I faked an illness and told my mom I had a stomach ache [I used to get gastritis in those days], and so didn’t go to school that day. My plan was to rest a bit and then play with my cousins after I felt 'better'. But my mom found out and I was scolded really badly. The good thing was, I got to play with my cousins; but I think something in me changed. I hated that feeling - that feeling of being found out and getting into trouble for it; not to mention disappointing someone.

They say if you can’t trust someone with the small things you can’t trust him/her with the bigger things. Sounds about right but I think nothing more than philosophical. We all lie especially on the smaller things because the bigger things might need careful planning. And some people lie with malice and some not; and some telling half truth or is it half lie? And what about matters intentionally kept unsaid?

Historically, those who win get to tell their own version of truth. But lies hurt people, truth too, but lies hurt even more when you find out... the truth. So what do you do? At least if you tell the truth you have a chance at winning, whereas when you lie you always lose. The realist in me doesn’t truly believe that, because sometimes liars always win - because that’s life.